One of Ireland’s most successful and popular magazines ceases publication this month. The Word, a magazine published in Ireland since 1953, broke all the moulds in relation to religious publishing and at its height in 1970, had a circulation of 260,000, with readers in Ireland, the UK, Australia and the States.
From the start, its founding Irish editor, Br Paul Hurley, focused on two things: first, to produce a quality magazine following the formula suggested by Divine Word Missionary founder, St Arnold Janssen.
The 19th century apostle of the Catholic press advised that SVD magazines “should, firstly, be entertaining; secondly, impart general knowledge; and, thirdly, be a source of spiritual inspiration and religious instruction.”
To do this, he said, “They should range over a wide field, so as to offer variety, have broad appeal and always be as intelligible and interesting as possible.”
In fact, the first Irish issue of The Word, had well illustrated articles on Stalin (who conveniently died that month), race horses, Galileo, Dartmoor, the Transatlantic Cable and a French religious film.
Brother Hurley’s other great understanding, was the importance of a high circulation. He and Bro Pat Hegarty travelled to literally every city and town in Ireland to promote The Word.
Blessed with a very friendly personality and manner, Bro Hegarty signed up thousands of people to become promoters of the magazine.
"They would take 50 to 100 copies each,” executive editor Fr Vincent Twomey of The Word, told ciNews.
The Word was the largest selling magazine of any kind in the early 70s, he said.
“It was a time when Ireland was a different place. The magazine wasn’t just religious, it was of general interest. At that time there were no glossy magazines or papers. People didn’t travel. The Word provided glimpses of mysterious cities like Prague, Vilnius and Riga and this was a breath of fresh air.”
But by 1998 circulation was down to 30,000, and in 2004 this had dropped further to 18,500. By 2007 the circulation was 17,000.
As well as facing stiff competition from both secular and religious publications, the magazine was gradually losing many of its promoters, and it was hard to recruit new ones.
The decision to close the magazine came in May of this year. It wasn’t a shock, said Fr Twomey, but he was “terribly disappointed.”
“Heartbroken” was how Sarah Mac Donald, outgoing editor of The Word, described her feelings on the closure, especially as she felt that she and Fr Vincent had to some extent, turned the fortunes of the magazine around.
The haemorrhage of readers, had been somewhat stemmed, and they had managed to considerably cut the annual cost of production which had reached a staggering €142,000 in 2002.
Under Sarah McDonald (who became editor in 2004), costs were more than halved.
She agrees that the loss of promoters was a big factor in the demise of the fine magazine, which won Best Religious Magazine award on several occasions.
But she explained that with an ageing SVD profile, it was hard to find anyone to do the work of promoting the magazine as Bro Pat Hegarty had done in the past.
“An Post were killing us with their overseas charges, which caused the loss of many Australian readers for example,” she told ciNews.
Writing in a special 48-page commemorative December 2008 edition, the first editor of The Word, Br Paul Hurley, tells the fascinating story of the magazine and its promoters.
“One young Dublin man sold 600 copies a month for us. Another young promoter later became one of the most distinguished people in the country.
President Mary McAleese recently reminded us that as a schoolgirl and promoter of The Word she “tramped the streets of West Belfast selling it”.
He concludes “Yes, there’s a time for everything. Now it’s time to thank all our readers and, especially, our most generous and loyal promoters, our contributors and all those who helped us in various ways. And, sadly, it’s also time to say goodbye.”
Outgoing Executive Editor, Fr Vincent Twomey is now to become a regular writer for Inside the Vatican.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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(Source: CIN)